I feel all pictures are underexposed.
If you had used the histogram before taking the photo to help determine the ideal exposure, you likely would have been happy. If you didn't want to do that, you could have reviewed the histogram after taking the photo and then made an exposure adjustment before retaking the photo.
Keep in mind that the reason your camera has an exposure compensation button is because very often the exposure has to be increased or decreased relative to the metered exposure. So, get used to using it or making the adjustment totally manually.
Be aware that with Nikon cameras, the matrix meter will behave differently depending on where the focus point is; if you focus on a dark part of the scene, the exposure provided by the meter will be different than if you focus on a bright part of the scene. That's another reason to pay attention to the histogram. As Jim mentioned earlier, the histogram is your friend.