No, it really isn't.
When the US people go to the polls to vote for a president, they are voting for the President. There might be some oddities in how the votes are counted, as with any electoral system, but there is no doubt about what position you're voting for or who your vote a certain way will help the most.
The number of levels of indirection involved in the election of European Commissioners and the mandates they receive within the Commission is such that there is really no significant accountability to the general public at all. The reality is that the Commission is often full of failed national politicians who have been given a cushy job as a thank-you from political colleagues when they can no longer credibly run for office in their own country. The "we have to do this, it's a European directive that all national governments must implement" technique has become a standard political tool for introducing unpopular legislation that would cause serious political damage if anyone whose job actually depended on being directly elected were to propose it back home.
The electoral college doesn't get to choose any person for President. It's a direct correlation vote: do this, get that result. Such is not true with EC appointments. You vote for a national government, then you pray they appointment an EC that you favor, but there is no legally required direct correlation that says they have to appoint X person. You make that point within your own post (where you note that governments who have chosen unpopular candidates suffer), contradicting your claim that it's just like how the US President is elected.
Yes, in fact, they do.
> It's a direct correlation vote: do this, get that result.
A lot of people look at it that way, and that's approximately what happens (especially currently), but not because there are any enforced constraints, just because the way electors are chosen gives a very strong likelihood of that effect; historically unpledged electors were a thing [0], and faithless electors remain a thing [1].