Are you using an ambient light? I'm looking at the dock area and it seems an ambient like is at work there hence the flattening, personally I'd rather a couple dim, non shadow casting area lights but then again area lights just kinda kick ass :p. Also the volumetric effect (is that even plausible given the setting?) from the spots seem to be coming from tiny light sources and don't seem to match the actual light fixtures, you can mess around with decay regions a bit.