Halo 3 + 3:ODST Black Crush?

[Kurai Shidosha]

I've been noticing pretty heavy black crush in these games and I am wondering what's going on? I have gamma set to the default value of 5 but there are places where the game should have visible details in shadowed areas that are instead completely flat black and it looks really unnatural, like someone cranked the contrast setting up to max. This is not a monitor issue as I have a finely calibrated IPS display, and the same black crush is present on all displays I test on.

Here's a couple examples of what I mean:

Gamma @ 5 (default) = https://i.imgur.com/Vv0Z2UY.png

Gamma @ 7 (raised) = https://i.imgur.com/FFRgWFo.png

You should notice immediately how the dark sections of the cave look completely pitch black in the default gamma setting but look much brighter and better with the raised gamma. This is verifiable to be a game problem and not a display problem as taking these same screenshots and viewing them on other displays (like a smartphone) will show the exact same black crush problem. Meaning, it's a problem with the game.

Furthermore, the gamma calibration in the video options proves that things are getting washed out by raising the gamma setting to 7 (or just high enough to not get any black crush) because looking at the section with the three emblems at varying brightness ranges shows improper calibration, as well as areas in game that aren't shadowed in darkness end up looking blown out and overexposed.

I've been getting this problem since these games became available on PC and I suspect I know what's going on here. They're not rendering in full RGB range (0-255) and instead using a limited range (16-235) as you might find on a typical cheap TV. As I'm using a PC monitor with full range 8 bit panel, I need that extra RGB range to properly render the image and not get black crush.

[Knightmage Bael]

I get that during infection games but not normal ones. Interesting.

[Kurai Shidosha]

Can anyone confirm it in the story mode? It's literally the first mission, it will be plainly obvious that black crush is happening in any shadowed areas of the forest.