I saw it Friday night, as an animal and horsey lover it did make me cry but it is no where near as sad and horrific as I thought is would be, I went armed with a 6 pack of tissues and only opened 1 pack.

The first scene to set me off was the scene where he was sold

There are a couple more scene that made a a few tears roll, one scene already mentioned here was the view of dead horses laying everywhere, I found that hard.
I enjoyed the film, it reminded me of Black Beauty (the version from the horses point of view with the mare called Ginger). War horse is worth a watch but it is a film and I agree there are a few 'as if' moments but they made me smile, afterall it is a family film.
I took a couple of non-horsey friends with us, the horsey peeps all liked it but two of the non-horsey peeps thought it was a bit boring.