This guide is my personal opinion on the best way to play Talon, and who he is. I don't mean to herp a derp and claim, "THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO BUILD HIM AND YOU ALL SUCK AND HERP YOU'RE ALL WRONG DERP." This is how I play Talon, I've found success, I hope you find some too. :)

Talon is an assassin. He is not a powerful teamfighter, and he is not a solid AD carry. You are playing an assassin, and during mid game a powerful ganker. His role in a teamfight is mostly as the clean up crew after the the thick of the battle has faded, and as an anti carry, when the enemy carry is out of position. I'll have a deeper section about your role as Talon later. But more to the point, do not cutthroat your way into a bad situation, it will cost you your life if you're playing against good players.

Look, I don't think Talon really needs the farm from a solo lane, but he could definitely benefit from the level advantage over other lanes when it comes to ganking. When in solo queue, I generally try and mid as Talon, and I think its pretty clear that he can successfully mid lane, but that's solo queue, a premade will generally include a better mid than Talon. It is absolutely true that he cannot effectively take advantage of the farm that mid offers, given your limited auto-attack range, but if you play your cards right you can usually get a kill or two.

Solo top is probably a better place for Talon, but I haven't tried it out enough times to know for sure. In solo top, I would change the build to start with a Regrowth Pendant instead of a Doran's Blade. The additional health regeneration will be vital for lane sustainability against a tanky DPS that will usually occupy the 1v1 top. Talon really has no way of keeping two good players off of a turret, and in a 2v1 he would just sit, rather hopeless behind the turret before popping his ult to try and force the enemies off of the turret. Find someone else to 2v1.

I will update this section as I try it more, but duo laning with Talon seems like a secure start for him. He's got great harass, he's good at last-hitting.
I'll insert more here soon, PROMISE<3!

I know it was in the champion spotlight, and yes, its true. Talon's weakest period in the game, by far, is the early game and its low damage. I read a guide that said to level up Rake first, and I've found that its a great way to try and reach out and grasp a bit of his mid game burst in the early game. Each time you level up Rake, you increase its base damage by 25 points per pass-through, totaling 50 increased damage. At champion level 9, ability level 5, Rake is dealing (130 damage*2 pass-throughs)=260 total base damage (ARMOR PENETRATION MARKS, GET THEM). Keeping in mind Talon's mana pool, try and play passively until level 5-7, so that you're spending your mana effectively in harassing.

Rake size 64
Cutthroat size 64