Digital Ocean offers a desktop version of ubuntu. When creating a droplet select the ubuntu version with "desktop" wrote next to it. You can then connect to this via VNC or using the "Terminal" Command from your user area. The desktop versions come pre-installed with XFCE but once your in the gui you can install gnome and choose your session type before logging in.
run the below command in terminal sudo apt-get install gdm sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-next sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install gnome*