Max Design defaults to "by layer" - all objects on a given layer are shown in the same colour - for easy identification in the viewports, I assume.
Standard Max (i.e. not Design) defaults to By Object which I guees is what you were expecting.
Customise > Preferences > General (tab) > Default to By Layer for New Nodes (UI section, on the right).
You can also change it on a per-object basis in the Colour Picker dialog - click the "By Object" button - but that will only affect the currently selected object.
There are many differences in default settings between Max and Max Design, if you really want to revert the whole program to work like it did in previous releases then look at Customise > Custom UI and Defaults Switcher, though that would then beg the question of why you got Max Design in the first place
😉
Max 2016 (SP1/EXT1)
Win7Pro x64 (SP1). i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX11.
nVidia GTX760 (2GB) (Driver 430.86).