I haven't, personally, tried any of the mods to brighten the game.
What I have found to help the most is changing the lighting tone on the lights themselves. I find the default tone too yellow so I go with one of the cool blue tones which seems to brighten things up and makes the colours less 'dirty'.
Edit: I just went into my game to give better instructions. Click on a light and Choose 'Set Color and Intensity...' and then choose 'This Light' or 'All Lights'. I generally do 'All Lights'. I don't know what color the default is as none of the colors have a green line around them, but I prefer the third one from the top left, Neutral White. You can also use the intensity slider to make the lights dimmer (I've used that once on a nursery lamp that I had stay on all the time as a night light).