Shaman, if you are still having brightness issues and happen to be using Nvidia drivers or have a graphics card control panel to go to, try changing the gamma and/or brightness there. With the windows's version Nvidia installs it is pretty nice, you can set the changes to occur only when you load the PS exe. With Ubuntu, I load PS, then open up the Nvidia graphics settings and it triggers the gamma changes. My LCD monitor is maxed out on brightness and still really dark without making this adjustment, I can't even see my character at some places. This helps a lot, brightens up all maps. All monitors and graphics cards are different, so it is tough for the game to work for each. Though someday this type of adjustment in PS setup would be a nice add. I'm sure if you have an ATI card, there should be very similar settings somewhere. Need any help with it, post some specs and we can see what you can do.