defaults to HL2 client/server

I've been trying to set up my mod and for the most part it's been pretty easy. One problem I'm having however is in the finalized release. In visual studio I can build and debug just fine but when I run my game from steam it executes the original HL2 client/server DLLs. My Gamecfg.txt, Gameinfo.txt and environment variables all seem to be correct. Any suggestions?

[Marine]

Are you trying to run debug builds? You need to use the run_mod.bat...

Release builds and no I've never run the bat I didn't realize it had any importance at all, I'll try that.

I took another crack at it made sure everything was set right did a rebuild started the mod from the bat rather than from the steam list. From the bat it did the same thing defaulted to hl2 original client/server. So I debugged and that was fine. Launched from steam and it defaulted??????????????

I restarted the mod from scratch inputing my assets as required and it now loads my client/server from the steam launcher; I followed the instructions to the t. However I now can't run a map from hammer it executes and then stops (not freezes.) I changed the $steamuserdir\half-life 2\hl2.exe to $steamdir\steam.exe???? to correct the mount error incurred. I think this is where I started screwing things up on my other mod, all though I don't know how. I'm assuming this is the "bug" that valve mentions and that I now must launch maps through steam although they do mention adding -applaunch 215 -dev -console to the $game_exe params which seems rather benign if steam doesn't auto launch for me and the launch properties are being set there?

[Marine]

Debug builds will NOT run from steam unless you add the proper parameters... Dont autorun from hammer either unless you want your system to crash