He's sterile. He doesn't have the perverse personal demons that drove Hitchcock. And he doesn't have the dark optimism of say, a Frank Capra.
What he's got is a body of previous work he morbidly self-references -- that scene of the bodies floating was taken and expanded from Empire of the Sun's opening.
He's also got is a fair amount of technical skill and the burden of a hundred million dollar budget that fairly effectively wiped any humanity out of the picture.
His movies are haunted by images of abandonment and broken families. Close Encounters has been called one of the most psycnoligcally unhealthy films ever made. The guy leaves his family forever! A.I. made lots of people uncomfortable. E.T. is on par with Bambi and Pinnochio in its evocation of the ephiphnies and emotional experience of childhood. All great artists eventually begin to reference themselves. Hitchcock included. And unlike Capra, SS isn't fizzling out.