Where does it appear brighter? If it appears brighter in the workspace (not rendered using the scanline or ART renderers), then it's possibly because pixel shaders are enabled. Pixel shader support in the workspace was added in v0.95, see if checking/unchecking the option in 0.97d makes it look the same as in the older version (View->Preferences->Use Shaders).
If it appears brighter in scene mode, perhaps it's because of your scene lighting settings. Older versions didn't have the Settings->Lighting... settings, make sure it's set at Global: 1, Ambient: 0.2
Which version are you coming from? I tried v0.96a preview and everything looks fine.