Inspired by https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=263528 and Mrkovonic's article http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-best-experience.html
As its based on MrKvonic's article its based on the top 5 distros according to distrowatch. You are probably best voting on Ubuntu as Kubuntu is a derivative.
Depends on what YOU like the best for "desktop looks/experience"....as each person defines their own. What's cool to you? And importantly...what's actually USABLE for you and your needs. You can get pretty crazy playing with Compiz..which many distros support well, and get some very cool looking 3D desktops..cubes, orbs, etc. Doesn't matter of I'm running Mint or Suse....compiz does the same effects.
I look at my desktop for few minutes, have a great ss on it right now, after the puter boots up, then I don't! Doesn't really matter to me..."does the OS work along with me", is my thing..
May be I didn't understand what you " DESKTOP LOOK ": I believed graphic appearance, so I voted for KDE.
I am not exactly sure what "DESKTOP LOOKS experience" means. Are we talking compiz fancy stuff? I perfectly happy without a desktop. At the moment I am posted on a Slackware64 machine using KDE.
i like fedora compiz does well in that but i dont use much of compiz so simple interface ease of use and good graphics best performance fedora look make you feel the power of linux without compromise graphic and ease interface i like its classic sober look very much
tried both the ubuntu netbook edition and the normal setup. got to say it is very clean and non cluttered