It seems to be a pretty serious issue. Everywhere it is the same. I can see perfectly fine and have never needed to use the flashlight at all. It doesn't seem to be a gamma issue, either.
Ideas?
If you are running the very low shader setting then it will be with out any lightning. It could also be that you increased the gamma for the game, right clicking on the gamma setting will lower it.
What's odd is that I was playing it on easy and then when I switched to normal mode it performed like it was supposed to. Oh well, it's working now, and that's what counts!