With PS3 it helps to occasionally boot it up in safe mode and run the [Restore File System] option.
It will scan your system files for corruption and fix them accordingly. It's helped me out in the past with freezing issues in other games, but from the sounds of things the latest patch is the main cause here (though I havn't been having any freezing problems still, playing a good 4-5hours at a time too).
Wouldn't hurt to run that Safe Mode option still.
For how to do that read here:
http://community.us.playstation.com/thread/627262?start=0&tstart=0
Just be sure to only run the
[Restore File System] option, can not stress that enough. Most of the other options will remove saves and stuff, and basically revert your PS3 back to the day you first bought it.