It seems that the engine update broke the MOTD again. My server users have reported this and upon looking in single player the issue is there as well after updateing the SVN nothing changed. Si there anyone else having this problem?
guessing this is the cause:
Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Shared Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)
Improved the performance and stability of the libraries used for in-game HTML display