That is the same as I see on mine due to the backdrop property in the theme. I do not see anything there to suggest an outside Dimming Effect...
I am honestly at a loss.
The suggestions above should work and have worked on each instance I tested.
Ok... can you try a third party theme (It doesn't matter if you like it or hate it... just something that can give us a frame of reference to compare against) and see if you observe the same dimming effect?
You can snag one from Pling.com
The next test will be to use the ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css to make some obvious change that is easy to observe, like
button*
{background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, pink, orange);
}
To see if that causes a direct and easy to see change. If so, then we know that the file is being seen and used by the engine.