shall i just run the hl2 or do i need to copy all of these to the main tf2 folder?
Here's exactly what I did to get it working:
1. Put the three .7z files in a folder
2. Extract the first one
3. Copy the media and maps folder from my regular tf folder to this one
4. Copy the gameinfo.txt from the tf/ folder to the hl2/ folder
5. Launch hl2.exe with steam closed, which launches tf2