I have listened to some of Joe's albums now, and I think he's a very melodic player. Not just endless, fast runs and scales. My biggest gripe perhaps is the production and his guitar sound. There's the general 'slick' studio sound, and his guitar is very distorted with lots of delay. Would love to hear him with a more organic setup and a more vintage, less distorted guitar sound.
Although Joe Satriani is not my 'type of artist', I still prefer him over for example Joe Bonamassa. Satriani's style is kind of true to his genre, whereas Bonamassa goes into shred mode when playing regular blues songs.