The Night Scenes Mode of s100 Doesn't Seem to Work

Just yesterday I got a PowerShot s100. One feature I looked forward to is the much touted Night Scene mode. I tested it last night and it doesn't seem to work. I'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to work but it shot 3-4 frames in quick succession, so I assumed it was doing some kind of HDRlike thing. Here's the picture I got, note that except for the sign at the far right (which was dimly lit) the billboard, other signs, stores, streetlights and filling station are all blown out.  It seemed to do a good job of indexing the different images but that's of no value if the lighted areas are washed out.

Shot with PowerShot s100 in night scene mode

Am I doing something wrong or does this feature just not work?

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Olympus C-8080, Canon SD700 IS, Panasonic FZ50, Nikon D5100, Canon PowerShot s100