This has probably been the most shambolic release on steam ever.

I verified and updated and it still said it was unreleased for some reason. This fixed the problem:

1) rename the gamefolder "americas army 3" to anything else

2) restart steam, it should show you "americas army 100% ready"

3) rename the folder back to americas army 3

4) restart steam, game should be 100% ready now and working
I'm starting the game up now.