Newcastle overcame two controversial decisions to win on Saturday. Tammy Abraham opened the scoring for Villa after appearing to handle the ball. The visitors were also incensed by a challenge from Lucas Digne on Jacob Ramsey which they insist warranted a red card.
Howe said: "That was certainly a tough first half for us. Obviously, we got the benefit of replays on the bench, and you can see what's right and what's wrong.
"And we felt really aggrieved in that first period that every decision seemed like it was going against us. The officials don't make any decision on purpose. It's what they think at the time. But with without VAR, I thought there was a lot of errors today."
Howe, however, insists VAR should not be needed for decisions like that.
He said: "Ideally not, but that the game moves at a very quick speed, and I think the referees and officials are making honest decisions, but they've got them wrong on more than one occasion against us, and unfortunately for us, it was sort of building up negatively for us.
"But I thought the players did really well to control their emotions, to stay calm, not let it affect our performance negatively.
"And that's not easy to do in that situation where you feel aggrieved, so I think that certainly helps our performance in the second half."