Wildwillie, I suspect the key is that the -server trigger is by passing the hook from the launcher exe that enables steam "failed to start" and thus advertisments.
Of course this could be failing in client mode, but you can't see the logs.
You could try a log setup as so: make a batch file(it may work within shortcut) with the following;
launcher.exe 2>log2.txt
run batch to run game
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