HDR mode in POE 2 appears to be either broken or a FAKE HDR, False Advertising from GGG?

I noticed the HDR issue too as I moved from Playstation to PC. When I enable HDR in game, it looks as if it turns the image to SDR. When disabled, the image looks bright and great, similar to the console HDR. I have Auto HDR disabled in Windows. It's like the setting is reversed. There is no problem of display bot being good enough for HDR, as it's a C2 OLED TV, also calibrated.

Seems auto HDR was somehow still enabled that is why the image was getting brighter with actual HDR impact when I was disabling it in-game. Auto HDR is completely off now and when I enable HDR in-game, it just restores details in what should be bright objects, but does not boost the actual brightness of the elements it still looks bland like the peak brightness is limited feom in game. It's weird because other HDR games and movies look fine. So something is definitely off with PC HDR on POE 2.

Until maybe the in-game HDR is fixed here is a way to get some much better HDR experience using Auto HDR, which if not properly set up it will blow up all the highlights.

Disable in-game HDR and set the Scene Brightness to -1, this will benefit highlight details later on.

Go to Windows HDR settings and click on HDR Display Configuration. If you do not have the calibration app it will prompt you to download it from the store.

Open the calibration app and in the first screen, setring for dark details, especially if you use OLED, go to the lowest, darkest setting.

In the next two windows, limit the brightness as per your display's peak brightness limits. For example for my C2 I have them both set to 1000 nits, so I moved the sliders for both until the 1000 mark.

Leave the color to default and that is it. Now open the game and enjoy some great looking HDR. The Windows Auto-HDR function actually does a great job, as it looks to be the one used over Xbox also, which is way better than the Playstation SDR to HDR conversion.