I'm linking some pictures here that I believe show the same problem. I'm playing on PC, no HDR (my monitor does not have the capability).
This male Shepard has either the darkest or second darkest skintone (code 221.2EK.GCJ.471.I5T.IEW.WDL.6WV.WD1.8WN.14B.91)
Mordin's lab, vanilla lighting: https://flic.kr/p/2mfqL7f
Mordin's lab, "DepthOfField=False" added to gamersettings.ini: https://flic.kr/p/2mfscFL
CIC, vanilla lighting: https://flic.kr/p/2mfqL5X
CIC, "DepthOfField=False" added to gamersettings.ini: https://flic.kr/p/2mfiaDj
This female Shepard has a medium skintone. I don't have any depth of field examples here because I only learned about this workaround a few days ago and I already finished her playthrough. But look at the disparity in lighting between her and Jack, even though they should be lit by the same light source here.
https://flic.kr/p/2m2NAzw
And here's where I tried raising the brightness of the image using photo mode. As you can see, this blows out all the highlights (as expected) but does next to nothing for those detail-less deep shadows. This cannot be what was intended, I would hope. https://flic.kr/p/2m2Tk54
As you can see, adding the depth of field line washes the image out, but at least Shepard's face is visible, and Nvidia's in-game filters help to bring contrast and saturation back to the image (not pictured, but I screenshot that if anyone wants). But I shouldn't have to fiddle with workarounds like this, and console players don't have that option at all.