Minecraft has turned very gloomy

In the recent updates, I've been noticing that minecraft has turned quite gloomy. The lighting has turned very dim, there are too many dense forests and highted mountains and huge caves and structures and almost no open space and grasslands. This might sound quite trivial, but it is affecting my gameplay. I do not play minecraft with the enthusiasm as I did in the previous versions of minecraft. I tend to give up easily. I understand that minecraft wants to make the gameplay a bit more difficult and not have childlike graphics, but still I dont think this is the right way to do it. Please take this into account. Thank you